


through the eyes of another

by IndianSummer13



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: Sweet Pea has watched a growing number of girls climb up under the the lights of the Whyte Wyrm’s stage.Now, he’s watching Cheryl Blossom: Queen of the Northside, take off her clothes because she loves a girl who wears a leather jacket.He wonders if there’ll ever be a day - auniverseeven - where someone will look at him the same way she’s looking at Toni now..Or, Cheryl and Toni’s love, as told through the eyes of those around them.





	through the eyes of another

Betty is settled into the booth she and Jughead favour when they walk in. They're not touching, but their fingertips are no more than a couple millimetres apart and she can tell they both want to hold hands. Cheryl’s fingers twitch and oh-so-quickly brush Toni's, which curl inward just enough that they're linked.

Betty remembers when she would do that with Jughead in the beginning, when they hadn't yet given in to the need to be joined at all times; when they hadn't yet realised the importance of just  _ being together _ \- of anchoring each other while everything else seemed to be falling away.

It'll come, she thinks: that realisation. It's imminent. 

They take up their own booth at the far side of Pop's, and are then asked whether they want their usual. They nod, yes, and Toni says,

“And a basket of fries for my girl.”

Betty isn't sure she's ever seen such a genuine smile on Cheryl's face before. When their feet nudge under the table and a lightness dances in Toni's eyes, she snuggles in closer to her boyfriend, steals a fry off of his plate, and says to him,

“I love you.”

She wonders how long it'll be until Cheryl dares utter the same three syllables she’s very obviously feeling in her bones. 

  
  
  
  


Veronica is last to leave the girls’ locker room after Vixens’ practice. At least, she  _ thinks  _ she is, until she hears a giggling coming from the other side of the shower wall. Maybe it should make her feel a little uncomfortable - knowing she's the third wheel in what is, essentially, Riverdale High’s own romance noir - but ever since everything with the Black Hood and her own father, it's a relief to hear  _ any _ noise made by other people. 

Once she's done showering, with a towel wrapped tightly around her chest and another creating a white turban on her head, she makes her way to her locker. She sees Toni, usually clad in dark leather and charcoal denim; heavy boots and heavier eyeliner, brushing through her girlfriend's red waves with such care and gentleness that it makes her breath catch in her throat. 

Cheryl's eyes are closed and her head is tilted back in relaxation, but she says, pleasantly,

“Veronica.”

Unsure quite of how to reply without ruining their peace, she nods and states, “I'll be out of here in five minutes.”

Neither of the other two girls respond with words, but both nod in sync, and Veronica’s lips curve into a smile. Sometimes, Archie brushes her hair too (with his fingertips as opposed to a brush) and she wonders whether Cheryl feels the same tingles up the back of her neck that she does.

Just before she turns to open her locker, she sees Toni inhale at Cheryl's crown, then drop a kiss into her hair. 

So much has changed, she thinks, from the day she asked Archie to attend the maple syrup tapping as her escort. 

As Veronica leaves, their cheerleading captain slides her fingers around Toni’s wrist, stilling her movements so she can graze the tips across her palm, and whispers,

“Can we stay another five minutes?”

Toni’s reply, as the door swings closed, is aching in its sincerity. “As long as you need.”

  
  
  
  
  


Penelope doesn't entertain on Sunday evenings: a lady must take a day to rest after all. She's pulling the cork from a vintage Malbec when she hears the unmistakable sound of her daughter laughing.

It's not the same laugh she's grown accustomed to hearing (the one accompanied with a smile that never reaches her eyes and falters less than three seconds after it's appeared) but something different. Freer. 

It makes panic settle in her bones and she forgoes the wine in favour of heading upstairs, where, she finds, Cheryl's bedroom door is closed.

She listens with an ear against the mahogany and finds that the sounds coming from the other side aren't words, but the soft thud of pillows hitting the floor. Her fingers wrap around the handle before she's even processed what she's doing.

“You need to leave,” she instructs the girl with pink hair whose hand is beneath her daughter's shirt (with, she notes, no sign of being removed) There's a leather jacket with a green serpent stitched onto the back lying in a pool on the carpet, and Penelope is reminded so much of _the_ _last time_ that she all but screams that final word of her previous sentence again. 

She watches the child she wished had been in the place of Jason when Clifford had pulled the trigger clamp her fingers tightly around the other girl's wrist. Her eyes are narrowed and her lips are set, and she knows a Blossom squaring up if ever she's seen one. 

“I want her to stay.”

The dark eyes of Cheryl’s living piece of Southside trash soften instantly, and Penelope watches her gaze slide to her daughter, a smile full of an emotion she can’t name turning up the left corner of her mouth. 

“I want you to stay,” Cheryl whispers, and Penelope questions silently whether they even see her any more. 

“You heard her,” the unmistakable voice of Nana Rose affirms, somewhere in the doorway behind. “She wants the young lady to stay.”

Later, after she’s swallowed the bile rising in her throat, Penelope finishes her second glass of wine in front of the fire. 

“I might only have one good eye,” her mother-in-law begins, “But I know love when I see it. And if you destroy that for her, well…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. 

Upstairs, the sound of laughing gives way to a quiet that leaves too much room for thinking. She wonders whether the fact that only a girl who belongs to the town’s most-feared gang has been able to make Cheryl love confirms her failure as a mother.

Her third glass of wine (and the quiet closing of the house’s front door after a whispered,  _ “Call me when you get home” _ ) provides the conclusion that yes, it does. 

  
  
  
  
  


Sweet Pea has watched a growing number of girls climb up under the the lights of the Whyte Wyrm’s stage. First, it was Toni. 

He remembers the way she’d been biting her nails beforehand; the way she’d self-consciously tugged the hem of her skirt down in vain; the way she’d picked a spot somewhere on the back wall and stared at it the entire time, her eyes only sliding away once the song had ended and she was officially a Serpent. 

Betty Cooper had removed her clothes - a step further than he could’ve ever imagined being witness to; more skin on show than anyone had felt comfortable with - and stared at Jughead for the duration of the song. 

Not much stays in his mind like that has (something had shifted that day - something he’s still not sure of) but now, he’s watching Cheryl Blossom: Queen of the Northside take off her clothes because she loves a girl who wears a leather jacket.

He wonders if there’ll ever be a day - a  _ universe _ even - where someone will look at him the same way Cheryl is looking at Toni. 

She unbuttons her shirt, her fingers with their pristine red nails removing each pearl from its hole until she can peel it off of her shoulders. She swallows, gaze never wavering, and Sweet Pea turns his head to see Toni standing in the centre of the floor with nothing but adoration in her eyes. 

Unlike the dances he’s seen before, this one feels like a gross invasion of privacy. It is, despite every component screaming  _ straight male’s fantasy, _ too intimate for him to remain where he is. 

The following day, when he’s seated at the bar, he sees them enter, hand in hand, cuffs of their jackets rubbing together. He’s not sure he’s ever seen  _ anyone _ look as comfortable in leather as Cheryl Blossom does.

  
  
  
  
  


Polly Cooper witnesses so much love at her little sister’s wedding that her heart aches. There are, of course, Betty and Jughead - who look like they can’t believe they’ve won the prize of each other; Veronica and Archie - whose love is much more public and amorous than probably  _ anyone _ cares to witness having just eaten a three-course wedding breakfast; Kevin and Fangs - who are taking tentative steps towards their first  _ I love you, _ she can tell, despite the fact that they’ve likely felt it for a while now. 

And then there are Cheryl and Toni. 

For two people who dress with such noise, their love is so calm and quiet that Polly can’t quite believe it sometimes. They’re seated on a different table, but from where she’s positioned she can see their linked fingers resting on the edge of Toni’s thigh; can see too, the way they both lean in at the same time - not to kiss, but to talk about something that must be related to the cake, judging by the way Toni lifts the remainder of Cheryl’s piece to her own mouth. The kiss comes next, soft and gentle and unapologetically tender. A hand at the back of a chair. Dark plum fingernails a stark contrast to the creamy white skin of Cheryl’s cheek.

Polly finds herself wondering if they ever tell each other the words,  _ I love you. _

It simply doesn’t seem necessary.

  
  
  
  
  


Valentina Topaz-Blossom is fourteen - nearly fifteen - when she sees it for the first time. (And after she sees it, she realises it’s  _ always _ been there) 

She’s standing in her mom’s closet, mama by her side, as she searches for a dress that’ll be perfect for the February 14th dance at school. 

“I have something that’ll be perfect,” her mom had said, and then, after glancing at mama, had added, “if you want it.”

Nothing is ever forced upon her. This is, she’s concluded, a careful decision her parents have made in the past that must relate to their own childhoods. She doesn’t ask.

As a little girl, she remembers playing dress-up in this closet - remembers drowning in red silks and extravagant robes and lace dresses that she now realises must’ve cost a small fortune. 

This time it’s not dress-up. This time, she’s old enough to (almost) fill out her mom’s clothes (and for the ones she isn’t, mama is pretty damn amazing with a sewing machine).

Two dresses are removed from the rail: the first one purposefully, the second by accident as it falls to the floor having been knocked off of its hanger. Valentina sees both of her parents reach down to pick it up, their hands brushing as they meet at the fabric.

Her mama holds it up, looking wistful for a moment before she says,

“I remember when I first saw you in this.”

Her mom’s crimson lips curve upwards into something that’s part-way between a smile and a smirk, and she gets the distinct impression that the dress is of importance somehow. 

“You didn’t know what to say,” her mom says.

“Still don’t sometimes.”

They share a look and although she doesn’t know exactly what it means, at fourteen years old, she knows it’s  _ something. _ Something so powerful that it doesn’t even  _ need _ a name.

“What do you think?” Her mom asks after a moment, holding up the other dress - one that is red and tight until it reaches the hips, where it flares out to a little way above the knee. 

“I think it’s beautiful mom,” she says - and means it. 

“And you’ll look beautiful in it.”

There was a day in elementary school, Valentina remembers, where her mama had told her she looked beautiful, despite the fact that a boy in her class had said her black bow was ugly.

“Why do you always say that?” she’d asked, tugging the bow out of her hair until mama had positioned it carefully back where it was meant to sit. 

“Because it’s true. Because some people never hear those words even though they should. Because  _ you, _ baby girl, should hear it every day - just like your mom should.”

(She knows now that the only people who’ve ever said those words to her mom are her, mama and her Uncle Jason before he died. The thought makes her chest tight and her throat ache)

On the evening of the dance, she puts on the red dress, shrugs her mama’s leather jacket over her shoulders, and takes a look in the mirror. In the reflection, she sees her parents smiling, her mom leaning against her mama’s side.

“She’s sensational,” she whispers.

Valentina doesn’t think the words are meant for her ears, but they feel amazing.  _ She _ feels amazing.  

In the mirror, she sees her mom squeeze mama’s hand. She doesn’t say _ I love you. _

The look in her eyes though, says it all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13
> 
> Comments are always HUGELY appreciated


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